


a soft touch, a welcoming voice

by thirteenblackbirds



Series: between divine and mortal [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Consensual Daemon Touching, Edelclaude Week (Fire Emblem), Established Relationship, F/M, Post-Canon, mentions of non consensual daemon touching
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:34:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25244719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thirteenblackbirds/pseuds/thirteenblackbirds
Summary: After a long journey, Edelgard and her daemon are there to greet Claude and his.EdelClaude week 2020, days 5 and 6: trust & touch.
Relationships: Edelgard von Hresvelg/Claude von Riegan
Series: between divine and mortal [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1842130
Comments: 8
Kudos: 39





	a soft touch, a welcoming voice

Einherjar is the first to notice them, rising instantly to greet the golden fox that bounds into the room, wings unfolded in welcome. They exchange quiet hellos, her nosing at his feathered neck and him preening her ears with his beak.

At her desk, Edelgard's pen slips from startled (thrilled) fingers – it leaves a stain on her council agenda but she’ll worry about that later. She is halfway across the room when Claude steps through the doorway and something in her heart loosens at the sight of him after so many months. He looks tired, his beard more unruly than he usually permits it to get, dark-purple bruises under each eye and windblown hair suggesting a long flight with too few breaks. But there is a light in his eyes.

“Hi, El,” he says with that vexingly beloved smile. “Miss me?”

She has to restrain herself from physically running to him. “Hello, Khalid. Welcome back.”

“She missed you.” Ein, that traitor.

Claude laughs. “I certainly hope so. I missed you too. As did Ameretat.”

When his daemon pads over, Edelgard kneels and holds out a hand for her to inspect, and when the fox nuzzles into her palm with a purr, she feels the same awe she did the first time it had happened. In Almyra, he’d told her, it is not uncommon for sworn partners to touch the other’s daemons – the most intimate act of trust and devotion that two souls can share. In Fodlan, the Church had always held that any such contact was abhorred by the Goddess, whose personal favour marked each daemon as blessed by her gift and, as such, not to be touched by anyone other than the human for whom she crafted them. There had even been rumours that those outside Fodlan did not possess daemons (did not possess full souls) but thankfully it remained a rumour that was never fully sanctioned (though never outright curbed or denied) by the Church. She shudders to think what Rhea would have been willing to do to the Almyran orphans of war collected at Fodlan’s Locket to protect that lie if it had ever been given the formal backing of the Church.

In this, as in most things, Ein had adapted faster than her and he clicks his beak lightly as he steps in to allow Claude to stroke long fingers through his crest feathers. (Claude always, always waits for her daemon to make the first move and grant permission, ever-aware of their boundaries, especially in this respect. Sometimes the memory of other, far less welcome hands on her daemon is too much and they cannot bear the sensation of any foreign touch, even a loving one.) 

The first time they had done this, Edelgard had nearly collapsed, an electric shock of pleasure combined with a conditioned disgust roiling in her stomach. Claude had snatched his hand back immediately, an apology on his lips as Ein scuttled backwards as though burned, racing to press his feathered bulk as closely as he could to her trembling body. That had been in the middle of the war. The war is over now and today, she only feels the thrumming of pleasure and affection at the touch.

“Hello, Ameretat,” she breathes, pleased that her voice comes out steady despite the shiver that runs through her as Claude combs through the fine down on Einherjar’s nape, crouching to murmur to him softly. She can’t hear what they are saying, though she feels Ein’s contentment through their bond, echoing hers. “How have you been?”

“Tired,” the fox replies, always the one more inclined to give her straight answers of the two. “We’re very happy to see you.”

“Likewise, dearest.” She has never called Claude that, but it is easier with the little fox, though, of course, they are the same person. “I can’t wait to hear about your trip, but you should rest first.”

Ameretat's bushy tail lashes lazily in pleasure as Edelgard massages her long velvety ears. “Later. You have things to discuss first.” With that, she gives Edelgard’s hand a warm lick and slips away to settle with Einherjar into a corner, heads together as they fall into conversation, all but ignoring their humans. Long legs tucked under him, Ein resumes his preening of her fur, running his sharp beak gently down her back in methodical lines. 

Rising, she feels Claude come up behind her and she turns into his embrace with a sigh, relaxing into the weight of his arms and the scent of faint sandalwood and spices he carries with him.

“How did it go?” she asks, the words muffled against his shoulder. 

He doesn’t answer immediately, instead reaching one hand up to rub small circles at the base of her skull, pressing a kiss to the crown of her head. He’s the one who has just arrived from a long journey but she hadn’t realized how much tension she held until now. 

“As incredible as that feels, don’t think I’m not aware you’re trying to distract me, Khalid.” She knows she’s not helping her own case when her voice escapes in a contented murmur, undermining the firmness she was trying to convey.

He chuckles, low and soft, the puff of air brushing her ear and the vibrations rumbling through her body, before giving her a quick squeeze and stepping back just enough so that he can look down at her, hands resting loosely around her waist. Edelgard manages to swallow the inadvertent noise of protest at the loss of the pressure of his fingertips. “You know you can still call me Claude, right, princess?” That hasn’t been her title for years, not that it’s ever stopped him from using it. 

She can’t tell if he’s avoiding her question for any specific reason, but nothing in his demeanour suggests alarming news so she allows it for now. “I want to call you by your true name. Not the one you felt you had to adopt in order to walk into a dragons’ den.”

“That name put me on the path to realizing my ambitions and it brought me to you, so I quite like it actually.” He is at least partially teasing, she knows, but still cannot help the flutter in her stomach at the easy declaration. A familiar heat rises in her cheeks and she resists the urge to duck her head. She’s not a teenager anymore, after all. (In the part of her mind that she shares with her daemon, she feels Einherjar’s amusement like little sparks and shoots him the equivalent of a mental raspberry. For so long, circumstances had demanded of them maturity and burdens beyond their years and now, she enjoys giving into some of her more childish impulses, if only in silence between herself and her soul.)

“Very well, Claude,” she says, drawing out his name in a way she’s come to realize can get a reaction out of him. Sure enough, she feels his arms tighten involuntarily. In the background, she hears the soft whine-rumbling sound Ameretat makes when thoroughly bemused. Good to know her daemon isn’t the only entertained. “How was your trip, your Highness?” She punctuates the use of his title with an inquisitive brow. 

His arms have relaxed again (she’ll have to do something about that later, she thinks) and he’s smiling down at her cheekily. “Actually,” he says, and her heart skips a beat, “it's Your Majesty now.”

A smile breaks out on her face. Wish as she might that he had let her or Ein accompany him (“Fodlan needs you more than I do right now,” he’d said when she offered it and she could not disagree), she never doubted for a second he would prevail. Nevertheless, to hear it spoken into reality is a lightning strike of pride and joy.

She looks into his eyes and sees her emotions reflected back in those dearly loved green eyes. Stepping gently out of his hold (he lets her go without objection), Edelgard straightens to her full height and gives him the formal greeting bow of one monarch to another. “Congratulations, Shahanshah Khalid ibn Darius al-Almyra.”

He laughs, then returns her courtesy with equal weight. “The coronation ceremony is in a week. The old man wanted it in five days, but I managed to wrangle two more so I could come get you both. Will you come?”

“Do you need to ask?” She slips her hand into the one he offers her, smiling as he brings it, palm first, to his lips. 

“Well, I hope the answer is yes. I would like you both to be there.”

She looks at where Ein and Ameretat are sitting, pressed to each other’s sides. “We wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

**Author's Note:**

> A very small snippet of a larger headcanon on a daemon AU for fe3h (but let's face it, mostly for how the edelclaude relationship would be changed and develop if they had better avenues for communication in the form of daemons who do not always listen to what they want).
> 
> Einherjar is Old Norse for, literally, 'army of one' and refers to warriors who've died in battle and are brought to Valhalla by valkyries. Fitting for Edelgard, I thought.
> 
> Ameretat is the name of the goddess of immortality and long life in Zoroastrianism and her name translates to 'immortality'.


End file.
